So, we’re going to war against the Islamic State. I apologize for my misgivings in the last
blog.
There has been a lot of criticism about how to address this
threat. Humanitarian aid, which many propose,
only addresses the needs of the refugees and dispossessed, but does nothing to
ease the threat. The most ridiculous suggestion
I have heard is to seek a diplomatic solution.
Diplomacy means negotiation, but who are we to negotiate with? The IS has no government that we know
of. It is not a country. What are we going to negotiate with? Are we going to give up land and if so, whose
land? What is our bargaining chip?
People blasted Justin Trudeau for his “crude” remarks about
the Mideast mission, but he was essentially right in his sentiment. We do tend to “whip out” our CF-18s every
time there is a crisis, be it Libya, Ukraine and now the Middle East. But that is also what a lot of other
countries are doing as well. The U.S. was
the first, but they have been joined the U.K. and France. Our pilots may have to be careful; there may
be a traffic jam over northern Iraq.
Other countries are sending transport aircraft and humanitarian
aid. And then there are countries
sending AK-47s and millions of rounds of ammunition, plus anti-tank rounds and
mines – but only to the Kurds. Soon the
Kurdish forces will be the best armed in the whole region. We better hope that they stay friendly. It does make some sense the Kurds since their peshmerga
fighters have been the bearing the main load in battling the IS. It is as if the world is saying, “We’ll fly
around safely above you, but you Kurds must do the real fighting.”
The Kurds cannot do it alone. Their main objective is to save themselves
from further incursions and defend the land they have. They certainly deserve credit for the
fighting they have been doing, but if they move into Syria or Iraq to seek out
the IS, they will likely meet a great deal of opposition from those two
countries. After all, their governments
have never been particularly friendly to the Kurds. But to defeat the IS, there will need to be
boots on the ground, as I mentioned before.
You will never defeat a force like them from the air or with resolutions
and speeches. They are capable of rapid
movement and concentration so any but local intelligence is probably too late
to react. They must be met with a
similarly rapidly moving force with better fire power. This requires trained ground troops, not
partially trained militias. The question
is, where will these ground troops come from?
At this point no country has offered such troops. Nobody wants to get bogged down in such a
war.
The United States is hoping that some of the Middle Eastern
countries will offer to do this, but they have their own problems. The IS is a Sunni movement, so countries with
a large population of Sunnis could have trouble guaranteeing that all their
troops would remain loyal, which probably rules out Iraq and Syria. Both of these countries, moreover, have their
own internal problems. Jordan? Possibly, but only if their country is
directly threatened and then only with US or other help. Iran?
Possibly, but they would be uncomfortable being seen as supporting the
U.S. Turkey? Certainly they have the military strength to
do the job, but may not be keen to support the Kurds who they have had problems
with for a long time. Turkey has said
that they will help, and they have been bearing the brunt of refugees from the
Syrian civil war (civil war - now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one), and
now the Kurds. It is questionable if
Turkey would commit large numbers of ground troops, particularly since they
could be accused of “invading” Syria or Iraq if they crossed the border of
either country (To do the job properly they would have to operate in both
countries). It would also make Turkey a
target for extremists.
